The Sison Canadense abounds in the [[28]]woods of all North-America. The French call it cerfeuil sauvage, and make use of it in spring, in green soups, like chervil. It is universally praised here as a wholesome, antiscorbutic plant, and as one of the best which can be had here in spring.
The Asclepias Syriaca, or, as the French call it, le Cotonier, grows abundant in the country, on the sides of hills which ly near rivers and other situations, as well in a dry and open place in the woods, as in a rich, loose soil. When the stalk is cut or broken it emits a lactescent juice, and for this reason the plant is reckoned in some degree poisonous. The French in Canada nevertheless use its tender shoots in spring, preparing them like asparagus; and the use of them is not attended with any bad consequences, as the slender shoots have not yet had time to suck up any thing poisonous. Its flowers are very odoriferous, and, when in season, they fill the woods with their fragrant exhalations, and make it agreeable to travel in them; especially in the evening. The French in Canada make a sugar of the flowers, which for that purpose are gathered in the morning, when they are covered all over with dew. This dew is expressed, and by boiling yields a very good brown, palatable [[29]]sugar. The pods of this plant when ripe contain a kind of wool, which encloses the seed, and resembles cotton, from whence the plant has got its French name. The poor collect it, and fill their beds, especially their children’s, with it instead of feathers. This plant flowers in Canada at the end of June and beginning of July, and the seeds are ripe in the middle of September. The horses never eat of this plant.
July the 16th. This morning I crossed lake Champlain to the high mountain on its western side, in order to examine the plants and other curiosities there. From the top of the rocks, at a little distance from fort St. Frederic, a row of very high mountains appear on the western shore of lake Champlain, extending from south to north; and on the eastern side of this lake is another chain of high mountains, running in the same direction. Those on the eastern side are not close to the lake, being about ten or twelve miles from it; and the country between it and them is low and flat, and covered with woods, which likewise clothe the mountains, except in such places, as the fires, which destroy the forests here, have reached them and burnt them down. These mountains have generally steep sides, but sometimes they are found gradually [[30]]sloping. We crossed the lake in a canoe, which could only contain three persons, and as soon as we landed we walked from the shore to the top of the mountains. Their sides are very steep, and covered with a mould, and some great rock-stones lay on them. All the mountains are covered with trees; but in some places the forests have been destroyed by fire. After a great deal of trouble we reached the top of one of the mountains, which was covered with a dusty mould. It was none of the highest; and some of those which were at a greater distance were much higher, but we had no time to go to them; for the wind encreased, and our boat was but a little one. We found no curious plants, or any thing remarkable here.
When we returned to the shore we found the wind risen to such a height, that we did not venture to cross the lake in our boat, and for that reason I left the fellow to bring it back, as soon as the wind subsided, and walked round the bay, which was a walk of about seven English miles. I was followed by my servant, and for want of a road, we kept close to the shore where we passed over mountains and sharp stones; through thick forests and deep marshes, all which were known to be inhabited by [[31]]numberless rattle-snakes, of which we happily saw none at all. The shore is very full of stones in some places, and covered with large angulated rock-stones, which are sometimes roundish, and their edges as it were worn off. Now and then we met with a small sandy spot, covered with grey, but chiefly with the fine red sand which I have before mentioned; and the black iron sand likewise occurred sometimes. We found stones of a red glimmer of a fine texture, on the mountains. Sometimes these mountains with the trees on them stood perpendicular with the water-side, but in some places the shore was marshy.
I saw a number of petrefied Cornua Ammonis in one place, near the shore, among a number of stones and rocks. The rocks consist of a grey limestone, which is a variety of the black one, and lies in strata, as that does. Some of them contain a number of petrefactions, with and without shells; and in one place we found prodigious large Cornua Ammonis, about twenty inches in breadth. In some places the water had wore off the stone, but could not have the same effect on the petrefactions, which lay elevated above, and in a manner glued on the stones. [[32]]
The mountains near the shore are amazingly high and large, consisting of a compact grey rock-stone, which does not ly in strata as the lime-stone, and the chief of whose constituent parts are a grey quartz, and a dark glimmer. This rock-stone reached down to the water, in places where the mountains flood close to the shore; but where they were at some distance from it, they were supplied by strata of grey and black lime-stone, which reached to the water side, and which I never have seen covered with the grey rocks.
The Zizania aquatica grows in mud, and in the most rapid parts of brooks, and is in full bloom about this time.
July the 17th. The distempers which rage among the Indians are rheumatisms and pleurisies, which arise from their being obliged frequently to ly in moist parts of the woods at night; from the sudden changes of heat and cold, to which the air is exposed here; and from their being frequently loaded with too great a quantity of strong liquor, in which case they commonly ly down naked in the open air, without any regard to the season, or the weather. These distempers, especially the pleurisies, are likewise very common among the French here; and the governor told me [[33]]he had once had a very violent fit of the latter, and that Dr. Sarrasin had cured him in the following manner, which has been found to succeed best here. He gave him sudorifics, which were to operate between eight and ten hours; he was then bled, and the sudorifics repeated; he was bled again, and that effectually cured him.
Dr. Sarrasin was the royal physician at Quebec, and a correspondent of the royal academy of sciences at Paris. He was possessed of great knowledge in the practice of physic, anatomy, and other sciences, and very agreeable in his behaviour. He died at Quebec, of a malignant fever, which had been brought to that place by a ship, and with which he was infected at an hospital, where he visited the sick. He left a son, who likewise studied physic, and went to France to make himself more perfect in the practical part of it, but he died there.
The intermitting fevers sometimes come amongst the people here, and the venereal disease is common here. The Indians are likewise infected with it; and many of them have had it, and some still have it; but they likewise are perfectly possessed of the art of curing it. There are examples of Frenchmen and Indians, infected all over the body with this disease, who have been radically [[34]]and perfectly cured by the Indians, within five or six months. The French have not been able to find this remedy out; though they know that the Indians employ no mercury, but that their chief remedies are roots, which are unknown to the French. I have afterwards heard what these plants were, and given an account of them at large to the royal Swedish academy of sciences[11].